were translations made by himself
from ancient Erse manuscripts.
There was a long controversy as to
the genuineness of these poems,
which was finally settled by the
decision of the Highland Society,
in 1805, that they had not been able
to obtain any one poem the same
in title and tenor with the poems of
Ossian. Wordsworth says of them:
Having had the good fortune to
be born and reared in a mountain-
ous country, from my very child-
hood I have felt the falsehood of
the volumes imposed upon the world
under the name of Ossian. From
what I saw with my own eyes I
knew that the imagery was spuri-
See an extract from Ossian,

66

ous

65.

OUNCE, a carnivorous quadruped, a
native of India.
PAGEANT (păj'- or pā'-).
PARCELED or PARCELLED.
PARENT (pare'rent).

PARLIAMENT (par'li-ment).
PARTHE-NON, the celebrated Gre-
cian temple of Minerva in ancient
Athens.

PARTHIAN. See p. 339.
PASCAL, BLASE, a native of Clermont,
in France, was born June 19, 1623.
As a boy he exhibited an astonish-
ing genius for mathematics; but his
intellect in other departments of
thought was equally colossal. Re-
nouncing the positive sciences for
theology, he wrote works which
show wonderful mental activity and
power. He died young, in 1662.
PATRIOT (pa'tri-ot or patri-ot).
PEEL, SIR ROBERT, an eminent Eng-
lish statesman, was born in Lan-
cashire. 1788. He studied at Oxford,
entered Parliament at twenty-one
years of age, became prime minister
in 1841, and died of a fall from a
horse, 1859.

PEGASUS, in Greek mythology, a
winged horse, regarded as the horse
of the Muses, and as having pro-
duced by a stroke of his hoof the
inspiring fountain Hippocrene.
PERCIVAL, JAMES GATES. an Ameri-
can poet, was born in Berlin, Conn.,
Sept. 15, 1795, and died at Haze
Green, Wisconsin, 1857. He grad-
uated at Yale College, in 1815, stud-
ied medicine, and in 1820 published
a volume of poetry. He was dis-
tinguished as a linguist; and in geog-
raphy, botany, and natural history
was an accomplished scholar. His

poetry, though exhibiting fine pow-
ers, was never a source of profit to
him. In 1854 he was appointed
State Geologist of Wisconsin. He
was a man of rather eccentric habits,
fond of seclusion, studious, and ir-
reproachable in all his dealings. See
p. 426.

PEREMPTORY (pĕr'em-tor-e).
PETRARCH (pe'trark) or PETRARCA,
FRANCESCO, one of the greatest
Italian poets, was born in Tuscany,
1304, died 1374. Much of his poetry
consists of sonnets, to which he gave
an admirable polish of diction and
melody.

PHALANX (fal'angks or fā'-).
PHARAOH (fa'ro or fare'o).
PHILIPPIC. See Demosthenes.
PHILISTINE (fil-is'tin).
PHIL-O-ME'LA, in ancient Grecian
story, a king's daughter who was
metamorphosed into a nightingale.
PICTURE (pikt'yur).
PLACABLE (pla- or plac'-).
PLA'TO, the great Greek philosopher,
was born at Athens, about 430 B.
C.; died in his 80th year. His is
still the greatest name in speculative
philosophy, as Shakespeare's is in
poetry. He taught the immortality
of the soul and the beauty of good-

ness.

PLOW or PLOUGH.

PLUTUS, in ancient mythology, the
personification of wealth. Jupiter
is said to have deprived him of
sight, that he might bestow his gifts
blindly, not favoring the deserving.
POE, EDGAR A., was born in Balti-
more, 1811. His parents belonged
to the theatrical profession, and he
was left an orphan at an early age.
He was adopted by John Allan, a
wealthy Virginian, and taken to
England; but in his 11th year he
returned and entered the University
at Charlottesville. Being expelled
from the college, and getting into a
quarrel with his benefactor, he went
abroad and passed a year in Europe.
At St. Petersburg he got into some
difficulty and sought relief from the
American minister, Mr. Middleton,
who provided for him the means of
returning home. Mr. Allan now got

for him an entrance as a cadet at
West Point, but Poe threw away
this like other opportunities, and
left before he had been in the place
a year. Being now thrown on his
own resources, he tried literature,
and became editor of the Southern

Literary Messenger, published at Richmond. After some subsequent editorial experience in Philadelphia, he removed in 1844 to New York. Here he produced his principal poem of The Raven, which, though full of defects and affectations, has the charm of an original and musical versification. The same remark is applicable to his poem of The Bells; but the constant recurrence of the word bells with its sibilant consonant mars the imitative effect intended. See extracts from these poems, pp. 58, 67. Poe has given flashes, here and there, of a true poetical genius, brilliant, original, and weird. He died in Baltimore, 1849, in consequence of his irregular and intemperate habits of life.

POPE, ALEXANDER, the son of a Lon

don merchant, was born 1688. His life as an author may date from his 16th year, when he wrote his "Pastorals." The principal of his poetical writings which followed are: "Essay on Criticism," published when he 66 was twenty-one; Essay on Man," a singularly successful effort to weave ethical philosophy into poetry; "Moral Essays"; "The Rape of the Lock," a mock heroic on the fraudulent abstraction of a ringlet of a lady's hair; "The Dunciad," which lashes with satire his literary enemies; with numerous miscellaneous and fugitive pieces. He also translated the "Iliad" and 'Odyssey' of Homer; of which Bentley, the great scholar, remarked, "It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it Homer." Pope was, if not the founder, the chief, of the artificial school of poetry, the influence of which terminated with the appearance of Cowper. Pope's descriptions of nature have a garden aspect, where everything is scrupulously elegant, regular, and beautiful. With the profits from his writings he bought a villa at Twickenham, on the Thames. Through all his life of fifty-six years, he was delicate and frail. The wonder is that soul and body kept together so long. His death took place 1744. See p. 856. PORTAL (pore'tal). POSSESS (poz-zes'). PRAED,

WINTHROP MACKWORTH, was born in 1802 in London. At an early age he was placed at Eton, where he became one of the editors

of "The Etonian," a college maga. zine, sparkling with promise of future excellence. From Eton he went to Cambridge, and was regarded as the peer of Macaulay in respect to ability. He was for a short time in Parliament, but died in 1839. See p. 345. PRACTICE (vb.) or PRACTISE. PRAGUE (prag), the capital of Bohemia, is celebrated for its cathedral, an ancient edifice, rich in Gothic

ornament.

PRAIRIE (pra're or prare're). PRECEDENT (pres'e-dent, n.; presēd'ent, adj.).

PRESCOTT, WM. HICKLING, born 1796 at Salem, Mass., attained a high rank among the historians of his century. Deprived by an accident of the free use of his eyes, he began a career of literary toil which resulted in the production of_four great historical works, The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, The Conquest of Mexico, The Conquest of Peru, and the History of Philip II., all of which have been remarkably successful. He died 1859. See p. 163. PRETENSE or PRETENCE. PRO'TEST or PROT'EST, n.; PROTEST', vb.

PROWESS (prou'es).

PRUSSIA (prush'a or proosh'a).
PURLIEU (pur'lu).

PUTNAM, GEORGE, REV. DR., born in Sterling, Mass., 1807, graduated at Harvard College, 1826. He studied divinity, and in 1830 was settled over the first church in Roxbury, near Boston. He is one of the most eloquent preachers of the age, exhibiting in his discourses fiue literary skill, a generous, sympathetic nature, and an eclectic spirit that seeks for the good and the true wherever it may be found, however unpromising the place.

PYRITES (pe-ri'teez or pir'i-teez). PYTHON (pi'thon), a Greek word meaning a dragon or serpent. The Pythian games were celebrated near Delphi in honor of Apollo, the conqueror of the dragon Python. Hence the priestess of Apollo was called Pythia. The word Python is now often used as a personification of the false, mythical religion of the ancients. QUARRELING or QUARRELLING. QUALM (kwähm). RADIANCE (ra'di-ans).

RACINE, JEAN (ră-seen' zhäng), the
greatest among French tragic
dramatists, was born in Picardy,
1639. The most important part of
his education was received in the
school of the Port-Royalists, whose
earnest piety and severe morality
received no discredit either from
the writings or from the conduct of
their pupil. He began his dra-
matic career in 1663, and his first
two plays were unsuccessful; but
his fine genius shone out with all
its brightness in 1667, when his
"Andromaque" (an'dro-mak) was
played. For ten years more he
continued to produce, almost an-
nually, plays, constituting a series
of masterpieces, and exhibiting so
little inequality that critical opin-
ions are still divided as to their
comparative merit. Racine died in
1699. His last work was his sacred
drama of "Nathalie," of which
Voltaire said, that it comes nearer
to perfection than any other literary
work which ever issued from the
hands of man. See a translation
of a passage from this work,
p. 168.

RAMPART (răm pärt).

RAPHAEL (raf'a-el) SANZIO, the most
celebrated of painters, was born at
Urbino, in Italy, 1483; died 1520.
In 1508 he was invited to Rome by
Pope Julius II., who employed him
to paint the "School of Athens"
in the Vatican. In performing this
commission, he gave such satisfac-
tion that the Pope ordered all the
pictures, already painted in the
various rooms, to be obliterated,
and the walls prepared for the pro-
ductions of Raphael alone, who,
with difficulty, succeeded in sav-
ing from destruction a ceiling,
painted by his old master Peru-
gino.

RAVINE (ră-veen'; but on p. 276,
line 10, Coleridge puts the accent
on the first syllable, thus: rav'-
veens).

REAL (re'al, not reel).
RECREANT (rec're-ant).
REFORM BILL. Under the old par-
liamentary system in England, cer-
tain towns had an old right to send
members to Parliament, irrespective
of the number of voters in the
place. The possession of certain
ancient tenements conferred a right
to vote. The reform bill which
swept away this and many other

p. 158.

antiquated abuses was passed by
the House of Commons, March 1,
1831; by the House of Lords, June
4, 1832. See Macaulay's remarks,
REQUI-EM (re'kwi-em or rek'wi-em).
REVERIE or REVERY (rèv'er-re).
REVOLT (re-vōlt or re-võlt').
RIFT, to rive, to split.

RISE (vb. rīze; n. rise, not rize; so
Walker, Smart, Worcester, Webster,
Goodrich). Walker, after alluding
to the fact that the noun rise is
sometimes pronounced with the s
like z, remarks, "The pure s, how-
ever, is more agreeable to analogy,
and ought to be scrupulously pre-
served by all correct speakers."
RIVALED or RIVALLED.
ROGERS,SAMUEL,a London banker and
poet, was born in 1763, at Stoke
Newington, a metropolitan suburb.
His chief poems are The Pleasures
of Memory" (1792); "Columbus "
(1812); "Human Life," (1819); and
"Italy," of which the first part ap-
peared in 1822. A graceful and
gentle spirit fills the poetry of Rog-
ers. His love for the beautiful in
nature and in art led him to delight
in "a setting sun, or lake among the
mountains," and at the same time
to fill his house in St. James Place
with the finest pictures wealth
could buy. The breakfasts he gave
in this pleasant home used to draw
some of the first men in London
round his table. His "Italy" is the
poem by which he is most favor-
ably known to the literary world.
Never weary of benevolence, espe-
cially to the literary struggler. this
kindly and gifted man lived far into
the present century, dying in 1855.
See p. 269.

ROTHSCHILD, MAYER ANSELM, found-
er of the banking-house by which
the financial operations of Europe
have been controlled since the com-
mencement of the present century,
was a native of Frankfort, Germany.
He died 1812. His son, Nathan
Mayer Rothschild, removed to Eng-
land in 1800, and by the extent of
his loan operations acquired im-
mense influence. He died in 1836,
and was succeeded by his eldest son,
the present Baron Rothschild. The
family is still celebrated for its
enormous wealth.
RUSSIA (roo'sha or rush'a).
SABRE or SABER.
SACRIFICE (vb. sak'ri-fīze; n. sak'ri..

fise or sak'ri-fize). Smart says that the principle of distinguishing" from each other nouns and verbs that are the same, or almost the same, in form," by giving "certain consonant letters a sharp, hissing sound in the noun, and a vocalized sound in the verb," has, in the verbs to suffice and to sacrifice, "been allowed to communicate a most irregular sound to the letter c. This, if not altered in the verb, certainly ought not to be adopted in the noun sacrifice."

SATRAP (sa'trap or satrap).
SAVIOUR OF SAVIOR.

SAUNTER (sän'ter or sawn'ter). SCAFFOLD (skaf öld or skaf 'úld). SCAR or SCAUR (skär), a detached protrusion of a rock; a bare, broken place on the side of a mountain. SCEPTRE or SCEPTER

SCIENCE (Latin, sciens, knowing, preseut participle of scio, I know), in its most comprehensive sense, knowledge, or certain knowledge. The knowledge of reasons and their conclusions constitutes abstract, that of causes and effects and of the laws of nature natural science. The science of God must be perfect; the science of man may be fallible. SCIMITAR or CIMETER. SCHILLER, FRIEDRICH (Shiller, Fredrik), the celebrated German poet, was born in Wurtemberg, November 10, 1759. and died May 9, 1805. In his nineteenth year he began to write "The Robbers," an irregularly impressive monument of youthful fantasy, an exaggerated picture of human passion and error, drawn by one who, in his own words, had 66 presumed to delineate man two years before he had met one." greatest dramatic work, the play of Wallenstein, admirably translated into English by Coleridge, was published in 1799. See an extract, p. 434. "The end of literature," says Thomas Carlyle, was not, in Schiller's judgment, to amuse the idie, or to recreate the busy, by showing spectacles for the imagination, or quaint paradoxes and epigrainmatic disquisitions for the understanding; least of all was it to gratify in any shape the selfishness of its professors, to minister to their malignity, their love of money, or even their fame. As Schiller viewed it, genuine literature includes the essence of philosophy, religion, art;

66

His

whatever speaks to the immortal part of man. The boon she bestows is truth; truth not merely physical, but truth of moral feeling, truth of taste. The treasures of literature are thus celestial, imperishable, beyond all price. Genius, even in its faintest scintillations, is the inspired gift of God; a solemn mandate to its owner to go forth and labor in his sphere to keep alive among his brethren the sacred fire which the heavy and polluted atmosphere of this world is forever threatening to extinguish. Woe to him if he turn this gift into the servant of his evil or ignoble passions; if he offer it on the altar of vanity, if he sell it for a piece of money!

SCIPIO (sip e-o), the name of several illustrious citizens of ancient Rome. The most celebrated of the name, Scipio Africanus the elder, overcame the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal, in a decisive battle, fought B. C. 202.

SCOTT, WALTER, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Aug. 15, 1771, of respectable though not wealthy parents. Some of his earliest years were, on account of the delicacy of his health, arising from a malady that caused his lameness, passed with his paternal grandfather on a farm in Roxburghshire. Here he acquired that taste for border lore and chivalric tradition which was so strongly developed in after life. He entered the High School of Edinburgh in 1779, and passed to the University in 1783: he did not in either sphere display any shining ability; his Latin was little, and his Greek less. During these years, however, his health was precarious; and, besides, his favorite studies lay out of the province of schoolmasters and professors. Before his sixteenth year he had run through a vast circle of fiction and miscellaneous reading, which contributed to rear the splendid mass of materials from which he struck the rich coinages of his future poetry and novels.

For a short period, during which he attended the law lectures of the University, he was initiated in his father's office into the practice of the legal profession; and in 1792 he was admitted to practice as advocate. But in this profession he

was not calculated to rise; he says
of it himself, in the language of
Slender to Anne Page, "There was
little love between us at first, and
it pleased God to decrease it on bet-
ter acquaintance." The affluence
of his family secured him the means
of indulging his favorite tastes; his
studies were now incessant and va-

rious; he succeeded in acquiring
a general, if not critical, knowledge
of the modern languages.

His first serious efforts in com-
position were some translations
from the German ballads of Burger.
In 1797 he married Miss Charlotte

Carpenter, a young French refugee
of great beauty. In 1804 he estab-

lished himself at a farm on the river
Tweed, not far from the Yarrow,
and became a literary man by pro-
fession. It was here that his first
great poem, "The Lay of the Last
Minstrel," was completed. Its pub-
lication, in 1805, attracted universal
and enthusiastic admiration. This
tale was but the first of a series of
picturesque romances from his pen,
couched in flowing verse of eight
syllables, and colored with
brightest hues of Highland and
knightly life.

the

In 1808" Marmion" appeared; in
1810, the "Lady of the Lake," il-
lustrating the scenery and chivalry
of the Highlands in the reign of
James V.; these were followed by
the "Vision of Don Roderic,"
"Rokeby," and in 1814, "The
Lord of the Isles." But Scott had
reached his culminating point in his
poetry. Byron's reputation was
fast paling every other fire. Scott
now struck into a new vein.
began to penetrate that rich mine in
prose fiction the treasures of which
astonished the world. In 1814 he
wrote "Waverley," and, for nearly
fifteen years, continued anonymous-
ly in rapid succession the series of
his novels. The secret of the author-
ship was faithfully kept, till com-
mercial misfortune forced its sur-
render.

He

Scott's early wish to connect
himself by proprietorship "to his
mother-eartli," betrayed him into
the purchase, piece by piece, of the
bare territory that swelled into the
estate of Abbotsford. His contem-
plated cottage expanded into a
romance in stone and lime," as his
celebrated mansion has been termed ;

and thither he removed in 1812. In
1820 he was created a baronet by
the king. But Scott's wealth was
illusory; his estate had cost him
suins immensely above its worth;
he became entangled in the respon-
sibilities of the ill-conducted publish-
ing house of Ballantyne & Co.; and
the failure of Constable & Co. in
1826 completed his financial ruin.
The poet's liabilities amounted to
upward of £100,000.

After a life so splendidly laborious
he found himself, at fifty-five years
of age, without a foot of property he
could call his own, and burdened
with an enormous debt. But noth-
ing could be more noble than the
attitude in which his adversity ex-
hibited him. He sat down in his
old age, and in the midst of ruin and
of family misfortune, to redeem his
fair fame, and to right all whom
his imprudence had unintentionally
wronged. He would not listen to
the offers of compromise generously
made to him; he determined to pay
his creditors the last farthing.

"Woodstock" was the first novel he
wrote after his great misfortune; and
its sale for £8,228-it was the work
of only three months-gave strength
to the hopes of the brave old man,
that a few years would clear him
from his gigantic debt. But his toil
was killing him. Before he could
reach the goal he sank in the strug-
gle. A paralytic attack in 1831
prostrated the faculties of his over-
wrought brain. In vain a voyage
to Italy was tried for the restoration
of his shattered constitution; re-
turning with haste, that he might
die beneath the shade of his own
trees, and within hearing of his
own Tweed, he expired in un-
consciousness, Sept. 21, 1832. See
the account of his last moments,
p. 71.

The character of Scott's genius
was more constructive than creative.
The language of his poetry is some-
times careless and diffuse; though
some of his minor poenis and songs,
his" Lochinvar," his " Coronach,"
&c., show that when he chose to
give the proportionate labor and
care, he could reach as near to per-
fection as any poet of the age. His
chief work of actual history was a
life of Napoleon. He was eminently
a painter in words. The pictu-
resque is his forte. But his brilliant